Changes made to North Carolina’s elections board over the last year were unconstitutional, but the board can remain in place through the November elections, a three-judge panel ruled Tuesday.
Unconstitutional, but that’s ok?
Gee, more attempts at voter suppression by the GOP. How surprising!
…the same three judges who issued the latest ruling — Judges Jesse Caldwell, Todd Burke and Jeffery Foster — threw out the first altered board as unconstitutional.
Might be time to take these “judges” for a midnight ride and a pep talk.
But, like the unconstitutionally gerrymandered districts, they remain the law of the land through the next election.
How can allowing an unconstitutional board be constitutional? Talk about splitting the baby!
I think the question is, what’s the alternative? Does the court have the authority to name a new elections board? Can Gov. Cooper do it? With only 3 weeks until election day (and any early voting opportunities beginning or nearly so), any changes to the board now could be quite disruptive to the whole process, regardless of who gets to choose. It’s a rock and a hard place type of situation. The law was unconstitutional, but changing things so close to the election could throw the election into chaos.
Of course, if you purposefully draw out the suit and drag your feet until you get close to the election before a decision can be rendered, you force the court into these sorts of situations. Meaning that malfeasant defendants, plaintiffs or judges can game the system to get the result they want (if only temporarily) by slowing things down until the election is imminent. Something the Republicans have perfected, unfortunately.
It may not be so temporary. The unconstitutional board is making decisions that may favor constitutional amendments on the ballot to make the board appointments suddenly constitutional. It’s like you find someone illegally rewriting the rule book, but let them keep doing it long enough to say rewriting the rulebook is no longer cheating.
To the people of NC:
What’s wrong with you? You elected a Governor from the Democratic Party and yet you didn’t elect enough Dems to help him out. You see what the Republicans did from the time that McCrory lost to Cooper taking office, What are you going to do this election?
Signed Confused Rest of the Country
Remember that the state is gerrymandered to death, so even if a majority votes Dem, the GOP still wins. That’s the whole problem. Heads I win, tails you lose.
As noted in a previous post - this is the strategy - it only has to last through the election - when this gets tossed they will do something similar prior to the next election which will also be allowed to ride through the election and then get tossed. They have figured out that once the election is over there are no do-overs no matter what the final rulings are.
Bullet proof.
If the choice is between the confusion and disruption caused by (1) an Elections Board that has been declared unconstitutional overseeing an election, and (2) the confusion and disruption caused by having a constitutionally valid Elections Board of only 3 weeks standing, it seems to be fairly obvious that the confusion and disruption is a wash but the unconstitutionality is not. This is a total copout.
The GOP consistently act like mafioso thugs, and the Dems act like wuzzies.
North Carolina is very gerrymandered in favor of the GOP.
Draw congressional districts by GPS algorithms or longitudinal and latitudinal rectangles… and put an end to the biased bullshi_!